J.C. Watts escalates attacks on Reince Priebus

Former GOP Rep. J.C. Watts stepped up his attacks on RNC Chairman Reince Priebus on Wednesday for not spearheading efforts to make inroads in the party’s “nontraditional constituencies.”

“I would submit to you that this is much broader than J.C. Watts or Chairman Priebus,” Watts said on MSNBC’s “Live with Thomas Roberts” in response to to a question about a nearly all-white, all-male committee chairmanship roster among the House GOP. “But at the same time, I would say to you that if any CEO or any head coach or any pastor would have delivered the results that we got on Nov. 6, when we were wrong in every category…that CEO would be fired, that head coach would be fired.”

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J.C. Watts escalates attacks on Reince Priebus

The Oklahoma Republican remained noncommittal on whether he’d challenge Priebus’s reelection effort. Watts, who said he was “encouraged” by calls for him to run, said the outreach initiatives that start at the RNC will trickle down and make a more diverse House caucus if the party commits to the change.

“So when you see it happening there [at the RNC], I think you’ll eventually see it filter through in those committee chairs,” he said. “We can’t expect to have diversity in our committee chairs when we got our Republican Party chairman that I don’t know, that I don’t have a relationship with. So if I don’t know him, how do we expect Joe Six Pack black guy or Joe Six Pack working white guy or Joe Six Pack working Hispanic…I have no confidence that they know him.”

On a possible bid for chairman, Watts said, “I’m not so sure. I understand the chairman has 120, 140 votes out of 168 votes. That tells me the RNC probably isn’t ready for the kind of change that I would be proposing.”

Priebus’s leadership is under fire in the wake of a rough election day for Republicans, when the GOP failed to recapture the presidency and the Senate, and Democrats increased their seats in the House. For his part Priebus is on a post-election listening tour, most recently meeting with donors in New York on Monday.

Readers' Comments (15)

Mr. Priebus could not bring his home state home either in senate or presidential race, even with the favorite son VP candidate, and an out of the closet democratic senate nominee. What makes you think he understands the country any better? Maybe instead of listening to donors he should be listening to voters.

J. C. Watt would be a great choice for the poisition, and is a MUCH better communicator than Priebus.

Besides, since our media has already shown it's willing to destroy the reputations of any Conservative who happens to be black, but can't even seem to ask the the simplest questions of Obama, Watt's reputation should serve him well.

What? Replace Reinhold Reince Priebus with former Congressman J.C. Watts as Chairman of The National Republican Committee? Maybe the Mayans are corect and the world will be ending on December 21st 2012. The 1% folks will not let this happen. As a Democrat I want Reinhold to stay on so we will win more seats in 2014!

Reince and spit does need to go far FAR away but in all honesty I think the GOP apparatchiks are too far gone with visions of Ayn Rand dancing nude on tabletops filling their heads. Other than firing everyone in charge and starting from scratch I don't see that they can even SEE what is wrong, much less have the ability to fix it!

The RNC and The GOP are not ready for and do not want what Watts would bring to the party. The GOP as of now is owned by the white ultra right Christian wing, zealots who want to take back our country from the others.The thought of non traditional constituencies is beyond their comprehension.. Watts should prepare himself for the fact that his time may never come.

My first pick to run against Pres. O'Bama. It's true. I wanted a cool conservative who could deflect false charges of racism when they clinched. Romney was un-able to demonized Pres. O'Bama and that is what really lost him the election. The rest is secondary.

The biggest problem the republicans have is that they don't know how to talk to people anymore. They are either afraid or they just don't know how to relate to working class people. For example: the phrase " wealth creation " doesn't mean the same thing to working class Americans who are struggling as it does to sucsessful white republicans.

If working class independent voters who are struggling don't see how a republican is going to create decent manufacturing jobs, then they have no reason to vote for that republican. They'll vote for Santa Claus. Republicans, check out the manufacturing zones Reagan promoted along the Mexican border. Why not create those in America ?

The false reporting of Romney's position on the bailout wasn't the only thing that hurt him in Ohio. It wasn't hard to see that the companies Romney sucsessfuly saved or created contained mostly entry level jobs that didn't pay a living wage. While the jobs Romney liquidated mostly did pay living wages.

No matter how many times Romney said he would stop China from cheating, many in the working class in Ohio couldn't get past him and Bain profiting from their loss.

I live in the Phoenix area. Everywhere you look there are storefront "Inglesias" - Evangelical Christian churches for mostly Pentecostal immigrants from Mexico and Central America. The Pentecostal movement is big in countries like Guatemala and Honduras and Brazil. It's growing in Mexico. A lot of Hispanic people come up here for religious freedom, just like Europeans did way back in the day. Now why haven't Republicans and Tea Party people opened lines of communication with these people instead of calling them names? Huh? I bet they outnumber La Raza 10-to-1. And how about all those black pastors who stood up against gay marriage? I didn't hear about Romney making any phone calls to any of them. This is what J C is talking about and this is why the Republican Party is going the way of the dodo bird. These stupid RINOs make me sick. Send that Weeper of the House Boner back to Ohio. Idiots

The RNC and The GOP are not ready for and do not want what Watts would bring to the party. The GOP as of now is owned by the white ultra right Christian wing, zealots who want to take back our country from the others.

'BamaDon

Member Since: May. 1, 2008

Party: Independent

#8

Dec. 5, 2012 - 8:15 PM EST

Watts is on a fools errand. Just like Log Cabin Republicans, he's trying to exist in a party that is racist, homophobic, filled with religious zealots and wants to return to the Dark Ages.

They don't want to change, they want voter suppression to deny voting to "THEM".

cacamp

Member Since: Apr. 20, 2007

Party: Democrat

#13

Dec. 6, 2012 - 1:09 AM EST

hahaha, another black guy at the RNC? Not gonna happen, Watts won't go along with the racist "suthern strategy" that the GOP still thinks is a winner.

Folks like you, besides being obvious bigots, are really too stupid to be posting on political sites........

The Republicans have more female, and more hispanic, governors than the Democrats do, and if you folks had had YOUR way, you'd still have black Americans in chains...........

OF course, if I fought a war to keep people enslaved, and then spent a century hanging them from trees, I'd want to say it was SOMEONE ELSE, too, but the REALITY is, racism is alive and well in the Democrat Party...........

Kentucky, Arkansas primaries: Is it racism? - The Washington Post

That President Obama lost roughly 40 percent of the vote in Democratic primaries in Arkansas, Kentucky and West Virginia over the last two weeks has drawn massive ...

Obama barely wins West Virginia Primary against Prison Inmate ...

Maybe you morons can explain how a SITTING DEMOCRAT PRESIDENT failed to get 40% of DEMOCRAT voters in many southern states?

Watts is right. Little Reince is being put back in power after getting trounced in the election. If you look at some of his fiery racist statement, it a wonder why Republican is being perceived as a angry white man party. I hope Watts challenge that little Pee Wee Herman wannabe.